


We All Fall Down

by Dragonzzilla



Series: Destiny [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Eliksni, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 20:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12896292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonzzilla/pseuds/Dragonzzilla
Summary: Today, a lowly Fallen aspires to kill one of the immortal Guardians.





	We All Fall Down

**Author's Note:**

> This story is told from the perspective of a Fallen during Destiny 2.

Today, I will kill the deathless. I may die for it, but I do not care. Life is misery. Scrounging for scraps, following the barks of callous Captains, receiving just enough ether to survive but not thrive. I am forlorn. I have no crew. They are dead. I lost faith in any return to glory a long time ago. We are a dying people, no matter how hard we try to stem the bleeding. We were proud once, until the Great Machine was taken from us. Ghouls have staked claim to the Great Machine, and guard it so jealously that not even death will stop them. They fall, only to rise again. Some twisted magic preserves them... or so I believed.

But I have watched them, studied them, stalked them. Always from a distance, in hiding. They kill us on sight. Distance affords safety. The deathless are swift and deal death quickly, but rarely do they fight at long range. Only a few carry long rifles. They prefer to close the distance, I have noticed, and fight in a intimate way. It is their weakness. Through the lens of my rifle, modified for spying, I can observe them at a safe distance. And after months of careful observation, I have discovered their weakness. It is small and hard to hit and only exists for a brief moment at a time… but it appears with consistency. The deathless regularly pause and produce a small machine from thin air. It is like a Servitor, floating and single-eyed, but small and angular. The deathless seemingly consult this tiny machine, for they always move with renewed purpose after it vanishes. In the rare instances that I witness a deathless die-but-not-die, either in battle with other eliksni and falling from a great height, the little machine materializes and the deathless returns moments later. I have been tempted to shoot these machines in this state, but not until I understood their function. Do the deathless keep their souls in these tiny machines? Is that why they cannot truly die? Are the deathless mere puppets to these machines? Are these machines their gods? Questions with no answers. Whatever the truth is, I know now that these machines are the key to the deathless' revival. And I plan to kill one.

Always there are deathless in these overgrown parts near the great shard. There were hardly any deathless until a few months ago, when they arrived in droves. There are many hiding places in these ruins, and I have a found a nice perch to observe my quarry. I can see them through my scope, but they cannot see me. The deathless are strange and come in many forms. Some are colorful like poisonous creatures, some are dull as stone. Some are large and some are small, like Captains and Dregs. Some unleash solar fire, some wield crackling arc, and some channel the dark void. All of them are deadly. It is impossible to keep track of them all, coming and going, heading in different directions. But I started to see patterns. I followed groups as close as I dared, moving between rooftops and peering from hidden holes, an insect in the crack of the wall. Weeks of careful observation, many close calls. But I have learned their routes, hot spots of activity. They patrol, disrupting my brothers' activities wherever they can. I find large engagements, where my brothers either dig for glimmer or deploy Walkers to protect caches, the easiest time to spy upon the deathless. They are so busy trading gunfire, they hardly notice a fly like me. I feel no compulsion to help my brethren in these firefights. They are beating their head against a wall, thinking it will break before their skulls do. Strength alone cannot conquer the deathless. Otherwise, we would have defeated them long ago. We must be clever. I will make my move when the deathless are gorging on victory, when they are fat and inattentive. In the aftermath of these large battles, one of them inevitably consults their tiny machine. It is a small window, very small. But I am quick. If I destroy the machine, I will render the deathless mortal. I am certain of this. It may seek retribution. It may hunt me and kill me, but I will have struck down a demigod. I do not seek the glory of it. I doubt anyone will sing songs of me, or even know what I have done. But I will die doing the impossible, and my soul is content with that.

Today, my brothers are hoping to excavate glimmer in a plaza. Their voices crackle in the radio I have beside me. It is a brazen move, one the Deathless will no doubt notice. I have set up in a tower overlooking the plaza, far above the chaos that will inevitably unfold. The height and angle give me the perfect vantage point to oversee the battle. It is raining and cold. I envy the fur that Captains get to wear. Perhaps I will scrounge up some, after the battle is done. If I live. I double-check my rifle, listening to the radio, counting down. Weeks of anticipation and planning would come to fruition. There is a building sense of unease. Either I will succeed in striking down a deathless, or I will give away my position and die unfulfilled. All I can do is wait.

There. The telltale boom of a skiff leaving stealth. I ready my rifle and cycle between the points of entry into the plaza. The crew unloads and establishes a perimeter while the equipment is deployed. The deathless cannot ignore such tempting bait. Minutes pass in anxious silence. I can see the unease in my brothers' movements. They know they are exposed, vulnerable. It is only a matter of time befo—

The head of one of my brothers explodes in a hiss of ether. The radio blares with the alarmed chatter of my brothers. _The deathless are here_ , they say, _the deathless are here_. _North, north!_ _Take cover_. My brothers hunker down and start shooting. I spy the deathless rush into cover, arc bolts whizzing by them. The two fronts exchange fire. I bid my time. My brothers fall one by one at the hands of the deathless. I hear every scream and death rattle through my radio. I am forlorn, but that does not make watching it any easier. The Captain falls, disintegrated by a powerful blast of void energy, and morale breaks. My brothers retreat and scatter, cutting their losses. Defeat. My moment approaches. I check my rifle one last time. I have overcharged the shock core, tuned firing system. Maximum damage. Harmful to the rifle after a while, but I need only one shot. Hopefully only one.

I look down through the scope of my rifle. The three deathless gather in the center of the plaza. Hard to believe three could defeat a whole crew so soundly. But there they stood, triumphant, over a dozen eliksni bodies. I am too high up to hear them, but they seem to be talking to one another. Two of them briefly grasp hands, as if congratulating each other. The third is scrounging around the corpses for things, like an eliksni. There is a temptation to shoot one of them in the head, take them by surprise, but I know it would accomplish nothing. They are not my target. The tiny machines need to reveal themselves first. They are small, but I have been practicing. I keep a close eye on all three deathless, for any one of their machines could appear at any moment. My hearts are pumping. My finger sits on the trigger, waiting. The rain is so much louder now. Come out, little machine.

I see a deathless begin to raise its arm. I recognize the gesture and what follows after. I train my rifle on them. The other deathless vanish from my mind. The world reduces to a single pinpoint. The air above the deathless' hand faintly shimmers, barely noticeable in the rain. But I notice. I press the trigger and charge my rifle. Its familiar spool fills my ears. The angular form of the machine materializes. One shot. I fire.

The machine explodes in a burst of light. Before I realize it, I fire another shot, this time at the deathless. It collapses to the ground. I do not wait to see the other deathless' reaction. I quickly duck behind the window frame. They will have seen the trail of the arc bolt, even if they did not immediately process it, and they will follow it up. I must escape. I flee into the hallway, just in time that a blast engulfs the room I was in. I am thrown to my feet, but recover quickly. The tower is tall, it will take them time to ascend the stairs. Time enough to escape. I planned my escape route ahead of time. I will head to the roof, engage my cloak, and fall onto the adjacent rooftop. It is a hard landing, but survivable. From there, I will keep going, maneuvering from broken rooftop to broken rooftop, until I throw them off. My cloak would last long enough until then. It would have to.

* * *

 

Once I feel confident enough to circle back, cutting through buildings and taking shortcuts back to the plaza, I find the deathless standing over the body of the one I had killed. Its little machine is nowhere to be seen. The two remaining deathless stand at the ready, but there is a stiffness about them. Minutes pass before I hear the roar of a ship's engines. One of the deathless picks up the still body of its brother in its arms. They all disappear in the way that deathless do, vanishing into thin air, and I hear their ship leave. It is minutes before I venture back into the open. I find a small white fragment in the grass, a piece of the tiny machine. Light clings to it. The rest must have been taken by the other deathless. I put it into my pocket and look to the sky. The rain has not stopped. Thunder rumbles. I have struck down divinity.


End file.
